Right inside our back door, first room on the left, is our utility room. That room was the washroom. It is where the washer and dryer resides along with a big sink for mopping. The room has cabinets to store household cleaning products. At least that's how the room was designed. That was before we got cows. And goats. And chickens. And honeybees. And everything else that goes along with having a little homestead farm.
Now, that little room is bursting at the seams. We've tried to start living with a new rule that states that if we purchase something new, then something old has to go - a policy for managing space. For example, if I buy a new shirt, then an old shirt gets donated to the thrift store or gets converted to the rag bin. That policy doesn't always work though with items other than clothes.
Had we known that we'd be getting into the homesteading life, our house would have been designed differently with a much larger pantry, room for additional freezers and definitely more storage space. Let me show you the utility room to give you an idea. The struggle is real! Here's the counter when you walk in. The incubator does hatch eggs, but it is currently being used to liquify jars of honey that has crystallized over the winter. The washer and dryer is on the left. Countertop is full of anti-parasite meds for the animals.
To the left when you walk in stands an organizer shelf with tools, battery chargers, and veterinary supplies. We ran out of space and a bin of beekeeping supplies sits on the floor with frames of drawn comb wrapped in bags and some rendered beeswax sitting on top. There's also soapmaking supplies and candle-making supplies. It makes it next to impossible to open the door and move around the room.
The cabinets over the washer and dryer are full. Empty jars for honey production line the windowsill and dirty clothes hampers sit on top of the dryer, along with other items. Oil lamps for hurricane season are stored above the cabinets, along with kerosene.
Above the sink, we have a shelf for picnic baskets, garden harvest baskets, pressure canner, and ice chests we use for carrying milk when we're milking. That got some stuff off of the floor.
Just last week I got a 1x12 pine board and some brackets and stained the shelving and put up yet another row of shelving above the entrance door for additional storage capacity for this little room.
To be sure, we are full. We're planning on making splits and catching swarms to expand the beekeeping operation a little bit, but of course, that means we'll need additional room for storage. Storage units. We've never rented storage units. In fact, that wouldn't work for us since it's off-site and we need access here when we need supplies. I read that the storage units are a relatively new invention. The first one was built in the 1960's in Texas.
We've become a people that have a lot of stuff. I heard a podcast the other day that discussed this, saying that nomadic people don't value material things. Because they are always on the move, they value items that are portable and quickly discard things that tie them down. It was the agrarian mindset that changed this. People became anchored to the land. As they traveled and saw things, they'd say, "Hmm... I think I'll take that home. I can use it." This mindset became prevalent as people not even in agrarian settings began to accumulate stuff. Personally, I think it's okay if it is stuff you use. If not, it's best to get rid of it or give it away.
So that leads us to think about storage, and at some point we'll look at buying some sort of an outdoor shed that we can use as a Honey House for all the beekeeping supplies. We'd like to find one that is a "repo" building that perhaps we could get for a good deal. Finding one is on our radar, and we are looking to purchase one - perhaps sometime this spring or summer. We don't want our utility room to look like we are hoarders!
No comments:
Post a Comment